


that's your horoscope for today

by tothewillofthepeople



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Astrology, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothewillofthepeople/pseuds/tothewillofthepeople
Summary: Courfeyrac almost bounces out of his seat. “Prouvaire, tell me who I’m compatible with right now. Is it Enjolras? I bet it’s Enjolras. Our kids would have amazing hair.”(les amis discuss their stars)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 66
Kudos: 644





	that's your horoscope for today

“Okay. Tell me my future!”

Prouvaire heaves a sigh. “That’s not really how this works.”

“Then how does it work?”

Here’s the thing: Grantaire had no intention to join student government when he got to college. The kids who campaign for class president are the kids he tends to stay away from, the kids who wear blazers every day and voluntarily take economics classes. 

No thanks. 

Grantaire spent his freshman year knocking out prerequisites, wheedling his way into studio arts classes, and making friends he could follow to parties where the good beer was.

But then his roommate sophomore year was Prouvaire the poet, Prouvaire the kind soul, Prouvaire the massive step up from the perpetually-stoned prospective frat bro that Grantaire had lived with the year before. Prouvaire filled every surface of their dorm with books. Prouvaire made his bed every morning. Prouvaire didn’t play COD at two in the morning without headphones, and that alone was enough to have Grantaire proposing marriage by the end of welcome week.

“I’m more of a hedonistic love affair kind of guy,” Prouvaire had said, which was hilarious because he was also maybe the shyest person Grantaire had ever met. But then he said, “You can come with me to the student gov meeting though!”

And Grantaire said yes, for reasons that have been unclear ever since. Maybe he was dazed from too much sleep. High on the gentle lavender scent that all of Prouvaire’s belongings had. Whatever it was, he said yes, and he went to the damn meeting, and he wrote his student email down, and over the course of a very weird and somewhat sexually frustrating year found himself to be the unofficial mascot of his university’s student government.

Which has led him here. 

Junior year. 

Still the mascot. 

Still sexually frustrated.

It’s Courfeyrac’s birthday and he insisted on dinner at his favorite Cuban-inspired place, so most of the executive board and a few hangers-on (like Grantaire) are all fighting for elbow room at a white picnic table near the back of the crowded restaurant. The food is messy and the drinks are good and even if they have to almost shout to hear each other it’s a grand time.

Grantaire is near the end of the table, right next to his roommate. Across from them is the birthday boy himself, and at the moment he’s leaning perilously far over his meal to better hear Prouvaire.

“It’s not fortune telling,” Prouvaire is saying. He has a book spread on the table before him, placed carefully between the drinks and white cartons of food. Grantaire knows this book. He’s caught Prouvaire up late reading it on a myriad of occasions, or found it as a centerpiece to their shared lunches in the dining hall. Astrology. “It’s gentler than that. Like saying, what sort of things should you keep in mind? What’s a productive thing to focus on?”

Before meeting Prouvaire, Grantaire knew his sign and that was about it. He had snorted over its symbol, vaguely clicked around to find celebrities who shared it. That was the extent. Post Prouvaire, he feels like he knows a lot, enough to hold his own in a conversation at least, talking about ascendants and nodes like a real fucking pro.

He has used this skill on more than one date. It’s hilariously effective.

He never says it, but he likes it. There’s something calming about the idea to him. The way that Prouvaire will trace an angle with a finger and say, consider. The idea that something cosmic is nodding and smiling as Grantaire careens through life like an unenthusiastic pinball.

“I always thought newspaper horoscopes were bullshit,” Feuilly is saying.

Prouvaire rolls his eyes. “Well, they are. They’re so general as to be completely useless. What you want,” and here he takes a moment to lay his hand on the cover of the book, “is someone who can look at your chart specifically and tell you things about it.”

“Okay,” Courfeyrac says. “I was born today. Tell me things.”

“I need the year you were born, and where, and what time.”

Grantaire fixes his attention back on his food. He has a copy of his natal chart tacked to the wall above his desk, with a few helpful annotations from Prouvaire scribbled along its edges. Apparently his moon is important. He takes a meditative sip of his drink. It’s fruity and alcoholic and he likes it. If he plays his cards right maybe he can steal Prouvaire’s, buried as he is within astrological calculations.

Bossuet, perpetually late but perpetually cheery, shows up at that exact moment. A general roar of welcome goes around the table. As soon as he sees him, Courfeyrac sits up and demands, “Bossuet, what’s your zodiac sign?”

He laughs. “Did Prouvaire bring his book?”

“I sure did,” Prouvaire says. “Take a drink, come share your stars.”

“I would if I could,” Bossuet says, squeezing into his seat. “Here, Joly, pass me the water.”

“What do you mean? Do you not know?”

Bossuet leans forward to peer at the book. “It’s a funny story, actually,” he says. “Did you guys know that my house burned down when I was a baby?” They all stare at him. It’s clear from the expressions on everyone’s faces that No, They Had Not Known. Bossuet nods. “Yup. Everything was destroyed. My family got out fine, but our belongings all went up in smoke.”

“This doesn’t sound like a funny story to me,” Grantaire says.

“Well, here’s the worst part,” Bossuet says. “I don’t actually know when my birthday is.”

Everyone sort of blinks at him. “Wait, what?” Joly says. “You always told me April first.”

“And you believed him?” Courfeyrac demands. “Joly, that’s the _whole premise of the day.”_

Bossuet cuts him off. “I picked that day for myself because I thought it was funny.” He shrugs. “I have a lot of siblings. Like, a lot. I was too young to remember it myself, and no one else was quite sure which day was mine, so. I had to get a new birth certificate because mine was just ashes. Legally I’m penned down as being a January first baby, because it was easiest thing to put on the paperwork. I celebrate myself on April first. And at some point in the year, I pass through some unremarkable day without realizing that it’s actually my birthday. Could be today. I’ll never know.” He takes a meditative sip of Joly’s drink. “It’s like having three birthdays, only one of them is mystery-flavored.”

The end of the table is silent for a long moment. “Even I know when my birthday is,” Feuilly says from Bossuet’s other side, “and orphanage documentation is _shit.”_

Joly sighs. “We’re destined to never know if we’re astrologically compatible,” he says. “Bossuet, you and I are the very definition of star-crossed.”

“Wait, that’s a thing?” Bahorel asks.

“Of course it’s a thing, what, you think anyone could take a concept as nebulous as astrology and not try to predict their love lives with it?”

Courfeyrac almost bounces out of his seat. “Prouvaire, tell me who I’m compatible with right now. Is it Enjolras? I bet it’s Enjolras. Our kids would have amazing hair.”

“Our _what?”_

Everyone laughs. Grantaire, for the first time that evening, finally lets his gaze cut to the other end of the table, where Enjolras himself is sitting. Eating his messy food with a fork and knife, fastidious as ever. Speaking calmly to Combeferre on matters of Great Governmental Importance, probably. Except, at the moment, his eyes are narrowed and he’s leaning over in his seat, attracted by the siren call of his own name.

“Our _kids,_ Enjolras!” Courfeyrac calls back. “The stars are going to tell me about our _kids!”_

Enjolras blinks, processes this information for three seconds, and then straightens back up in his seat and returns his attention to Combeferre.

Grantaire swallows.

Student government should have come with a warning for possible side effects, he thinks. Someone with a mellow voice should have pulled him aside and told him it was likely to cause idealism. In more severe cases, fanaticism. That a rare and serious side effect included falling in love with a man so perfect as to be perfectly unobtainable. Call your fucking doctor.

“What about you, Grantaire?”

He jerks his attention back to his end of the table. “What about me?”

“What’s your sign?” Courfeyrac asks. “Are we compatible?”

“He’s a water sign,” Prouvaire interjects with a grimace. “That’s not…great for you. Not impossible, but like. Not easy?”

“Love is never easy,” Grantaire says, grandiose, and finishes his drink. “Don’t worry, Courf. I’ll fight for us.”

“Aw, my hero.”

Feuilly and Bahorel leave, citing a long walk back to their apartment, which unites the whole table in a cheerful farewell. They both hug Courfeyrac and wish him a happy birthday before they depart.

“Are _they_ compatible?” Joly asks, once the two have left the restaurant.

Prouvaire’s mouth quirks up in a smile. “Astrologically? No. But have you seen how easily they fit together?”

“So what does that mean, then?” Courfeyrac demands. “Is it all fake?”

He’s not trying to be a dick, but Grantaire knows how much Prouvaire hates that question. “There’s a lot of answers,” he says calmly. “Even if their signs aren’t compatible on a surface level, they could have other aspects that soften things. It’s also true that different factors can manifest in different ways, person to person. And at the end of the day?” He shrugs and closes the book. “It’s all just gentle guidance, like I said. You should never let anyone tell you what to do, not even the stars.”

Grantaire loves his friends.

“I need to head out soon,” he says, which is true. “I have an early class tomorrow.” This is also technically true, but Grantaire has no intention of attending. It’s a lecture, huge and impersonal and always recorded, so he skips with abandon. 

He just wants to be home. He’s done being a person for the night.

“And miss the rest of my birthday celebration?” Courfeyrac asks, mock-hurt.

Grantaire laughs as he struggles up from his place on the bench. “If you hadn’t already required my presence at the bar crawl this weekend, that protest would have more weight,” he says. No one was quite fired up enough to celebrate on a Wednesday. They agreed on dinner, and made exuberant weekend plans for alcohol. 

“That’s true,” Courfeyrac says, brightening up. “I’ll return Prouvaire to you in good shape, I just want to ask him more questions about my chart.”

“Be my guest.”

“Wait,” Bossuet says, “Prouvaire, what’s your zodiac sign?”

Prouvaire thumbs the edge of the book with a smile. “Can’t give away all of my secrets,” he says, and laughs over Courfeyrac’s loud protestations of unfairness. Grantaire bids them both goodnight with a grin on his face. 

He pauses on the doorstep of the restaurant to pull up the collar of his jacket. It’s early October but already a chill has settled over the university. He wishes he had brought his scarf, his hat. A jean jacket doesn’t quite cut it now that the sun has gone down.

The door opens behind him. “You’re look like you’re already freezing,” a familiar voice says.

Grantaire turns around and smiles. A reflex. Enjolras is there, devastating as ever in a long black coat. One thing Grantaire loves about the colder season is the appearance of that coat. It makes Enjolras look even taller than he actually is, not that he needs the help.

“Overestimated the weather,” Grantaire says. “I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want my scarf?”

“No.” He tries not to let himself have things like that. 

“If you’re sure,” Enjolras says, winding the scarf in question more closely around his throat. It’s a soft-looking thing. Green plaid. It looks good on him.

“I’m just heading home,” Grantaire says, for want of anything to say.

Enjolras nods. “Me too. Can I walk with you?”

“Sure? I didn’t think we were in the same direction.”

“We are for a few blocks, at least.”

“Okay, then.” Grantaire hops down the step to the sidewalk and lingers there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as Enjolras pulls on his gloves. Grantaire doesn’t even wear gloves in the dead of winter. It should be illegal, he thinks, for a college student to be so put-together. Except that Enjolras is rooming with Combeferre, who also acts like a professor trapped in a younger shell. He isn’t sure which one of them rubs off more on the other. “No Combeferre?”

Enjolras shakes his head as they begin walking down the sidewalk. “He wanted to stay. Talk to Courfeyrac some more.”

Grantaire nods. Combeferre’s attraction to Courfeyrac is an open secret, acknowledged by everyone but the pair themselves. Personally, Grantaire will be shocked if they don’t get together by Christmas. Prouvaire, ever the optimist, predicted it would be by Thanksgiving. “You didn’t want to stay?”

“I’m tired,” Enjolras admits openly. He has a small frown on his face. “I had a presentation in class this morning that I stayed up late preparing for, and it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Wednesday is one of my busiest days, too, so nothing ever really calmed down from there.”

They pause an intersection. Enjolras, after checking, walks against the light. Unrepentant. Grantaire smiles to himself and skips forward a step to catch up.

“Good of you to still come to dinner,” he says. Bad experiences in class can be enough to make him completely disappear. Enjolras’s drive, as ever, is an object of admiration. 

“Of course,” Enjolras says. “It’s important to me.” He allows himself half a smile, which does devastating things to Grantaire. “Even if I could hardly talk him from my end of the table. I hear he and I are having kids?”

Grantaire laughs. It spills out of him like fog in the late October air. “It’s written in the stars. No going back now. No, he was trying to check your zodiac sign.”

“Oh, is that what you were talking about? I could hardly hear.”

“Yeah, Prouvaire brought his book. Special present for Courf. Telling him all about his planets and stuff.” Grantaire stuffs his hands in his pockets. His fingers are freezing.

“And his…children?”

Grantaire laughs again. “That was just Courf joking. He was asking about compatibility.”

“Between stars?”

“Between people who have different signs.”

“That’s a thing?”

Grantaire nods. “Apparently? I don’t know a lot about it, but it’s something you can figure out. Certain signs work better with certain others, or maybe aren’t so great together. Like, I don’t know, I’m a water sign, so apparently Courf and I wouldn’t be compatible. I can only get with other water signs. Or something.”

“I think I’m a water sign too,” Enjolras muses. 

Grantaire takes a breath. Reminds himself heavily that Enjolras can’t have meant that comment the way it could be taken. Not an option. Not on his mind.

Another intersection.

The streetlights have already flicked on for the night. The light growing and fading on the edge of Enjolras’s profile is…significant. Grantaire tries to keep his eyes forward. He wants to drop to his knees on the cold pavement and start asking for…everything. Anything. He doesn’t know what.

“I only know because Prouvaire told me, of course,” Enjolras adds. “I don’t know anything about it apart from that.”

Grantaire nods. “I kind of assumed you wouldn’t be into it,” he admits. 

“No?”

“Seems a bit too…esoteric for your taste.”

“Maybe it is,” Enjolras concedes. “I certainly haven’t studied it on my own time.” He glances at Grantaire. “But it matters to a friend of mine. The least I can do is listen.”

Grantaire nods. Magnanimous. A very Enjolras answer to make. Then he looks around and stops walking. “Haven’t we passed your street?”

Enjolras glances back, unconcerned. “We’re still talking,” he says.

“Yeah, but you, like, had a long day and shit. I thought you would want to get home.”

“I do. But I also want to keep talking to you.” He says it plainly, with no hesitation or embarrassment. His forthright nature is what makes him such a damn good president to the student body, and what makes him unbearable in the best way to Grantaire specifically. He always knows exactly what Enjolras is thinking. Exactly where he stands. Exactly how sharp his tongue can be, when Grantaire oversteps or fucks up or takes a joke a little too far.

At the moment, though, he looks calm and cold. His gloved hands are in the pockets of his long coat and he wants to keep talking to Grantaire. It shouldn’t mean anything. It probably doesn’t.

“What do you want to talk about?” He wonders if there’s something Bigger weighing on Enjolras’s mind, if there’s a fight they need to have for which he hasn’t gotten the memo.

But Enjolras only shrugs. “Anything.” That half smile again. “More stars, if you like.”

“I’d need to know your birthday first,” Grantaire says, automatic. It’s a stupid comment. He wishes he could take it back.

“I can tell it to you.”

Grantaire takes a breath. “Okay.” His hands, hidden within his jacket, are curled into nervous fists. He has no idea what’s going on. “How do you want to—?”

“Why don’t you come back to mine?” Enjolras interrupts. He gives a self-conscious shrug when Grantaire stares at him. “I really do want to get home. We could…hang out.”

“Sure,” Grantaire says, dubiously. They start going back down the street to the relevant corner. Grantaire has never been invited to “hang out” with Enjolras. They have before, sure, ending up in the same dining hall for lunch, the last two with homework at the end of a group study session, chatting and waiting together for various governmental events. But never such a pointed request. Grantaire doesn’t know what to make of it. “I do have a class early tomorrow, though, so…”

“You always skip your Thursday morning class.”

Grantaire blinks at him. “How do you know that?” The thought of Enjolras having his schedule memorized—having his schedule _deviations_ memorized—makes his chest feel funny.

“Combeferre said that’s when the two of you usually get coffee,” Enjolras says mildly as they turn onto his street. “I made the assumption that you weren’t putting yourself in two places at once.”

“Risky assumption,” Grantaire says. “I could have one of those, what are they, fucking time-turner things.”

“So are you going to disappear if I don’t get you home by a certain hour?”

“I think that’s more Cinderella than Harry Potter.”

Enjolras casts a look down at Grantaire’s black boots, sturdy and beat-up and dependable on the cold sidewalk. “I’ll hope that no one has the same shoe size as you.”

It’s another comment that feels dangerous, skating on the edge of what Grantaire doesn’t even like to hope for. Enjolras casting himself as the prince, Grantaire as the kid who sits among the ashes. Maybe it’s apt. “So many people do,” he says, before he can stop himself. “You’ll be screwed, man. Having to settle with some rando that also wears a size nine.”

Enjolras just laughs and lets them into his apartment.

He and Combeferre share a set of rooms at the top of a large white building full of other students. Once a house, it had been sectioned off in the near past into one- or two-bedroom apartments, to squeeze as many students as possible under one roof. Grantaire’s apartment this year is the same, but Enjolras’s is undoubtedly nicer.

The space is like a perfect portrait of him and Combeferre. It’s still slightly shabby, in the way of all student housing, but their furniture is solid and clean and the space is filled with books. Combeferre’s NASA posters line the living room walls. They have a coat rack and a mat for wiping off shoes.

It’s quiet and comfortable. Some of their friends are surprised by it, expecting that Enjolras would pay little mind to such things. But Grantaire knows how careful Enjolras can be, how methodical, how intentional.

The first time Grantaire saw Enjolras, he wasn’t yelling into a megaphone at a protest or forcing petitions into the hands of passers-by. He wasn’t ranting about injustice. He wasn’t crying over the plight of man.

The first time Grantaire saw Enjolras, he was reading quietly from a book in the corner of the room while the rest of the student government members chatted cheerfully. It was their welcome-back meeting, a chance for new people to come see what all the fuss was about, and most of the members were happily greeting newcomers and taking down emails.

But Enjolras was calm. The one point of stillness in the room. Rather than making him disappear, it made him stand out, like a pillar that held everyone’s good natures aloft. A soft curl of his hair had been falling into his eyes, and Grantaire had punched Prouvaire in the shoulder and asked, “Who is that?”

“That’s Enjolras,” Prouvaire said. “He isn’t usually so quiet.” 

Grantaire would see for himself, in the coming months, just how loud and passionate Enjolras could be. How enthusiasm could make his eyes bright. How impatiently he would smooth back his hair to keep it out of his way. 

But that day, he had been all stillness, and Grantaire, as much of a scattered mess as he always is, had _wanted._

“What do you want?” Grantaire asks now. He takes off his jean jacket and hangs it up. Feeling is beginning to return to the tip of his nose, now that they’re inside. “To do, I mean.”

“We don’t really have to do anything,” Enjolras says, hanging up his own coat. “I just wanted company.”

“You just left a restaurant full of your friends.”

“Quieter company than that.”

“Am I quiet?” Grantaire asks, laughing. Personally, he bemoans the fact that he can never shut up in Enjolras’s company. Always trying to ask questions, tell stories, make jokes. “Your perspective must be so skewed, man.”

Enjolras doesn’t respond to that. “Do you want coffee? I can make some.”

“No you can’t,” Grantaire replies, a reflex. “You always burn it.” For a moment it feels like an overstep: too familiar, too comfortable. 

Enjolras just huffs out a laugh and moves into the little kitchen. “Criticized in my own home,” he says. “My own sanctum.” Grantaire follows him. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“Nowhere is safe,” he says. It feels like the most natural next step in this banter.

“I suppose not.” The kitchen is a bit more emblematic of a college student. Stolen dining hall mugs, mismatched plates, dirty dishes stacked beside the sink, empty wine bottles in a line beside the fridge. It makes Grantaire relax a bit. “Do you want tea? I can manage that.”

“Tea,” Grantaire snorts. “What kind of undergraduate are you? I’d love some. Honey, too, if you’ve got it.”

“Combeferre does. He likes things sweeter than I do.”

Grantaire doesn’t respond to that. The first five comments that spring to mind are much too bitter to match honey.

The two mugs—both emblazoned with their school logo, which seems out of character—are put into the microwave. “I think I only have green tea,” Enjolras says, turning back around to face Grantaire. “But Combeferre has a few more types, and we have an open cupboard policy when it comes to tea.”

A policy. It’s probably drafted and signed somewhere. Maybe they got it notarized, or at least dated with Courfeyrac as witness. “Green tea is fine.”

“Cool.” Enjolras leans back against the counter and taps his thumbs on it. Grantaire stays in the doorway. “So. How’s your semester going?”

The attempt at blatant small talk makes Grantaire smile, but all he says is, “Fine. Yours?”

“Pretty good.” One corner of Enjolras’s mouth turns down. “Well, I have one class that I absolutely despise, but. There’s always one, isn’t there?”

“Which class? What’s wrong with it?” Grantaire will never be tired of watching Enjolras finally act like a normal person. 

“It’s polisci, and it’s…” He trails off when Grantaire starts to laugh. “What?”

“You did that to yourself, man,” Grantaire says. “I steer far away from that type of shit. Attracts the worst students and the worst professors.” He finally thinks that he’s gone too far, that he’s provoked Enjolras ire and will get kicked out before his tea is even done, but Enjolras just sighs and rolls his eyes.

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” he says. “I hold my tongue, when I’m in class.” Baffling mental image. “I understand that everyone is coming at the material from a different place and everyone has shaped their beliefs in different ways. But some of them are so deliberately obtuse, it’s, it’s actually astonishing. I don’t understand it.”

The microwave beeps. As Enjolras turns to remove the mugs, Grantaire says, “You’re just astrologically incompatible.”

Enjolras laughs. “Maybe so.”

“They’re all Geminis,” Grantaire says. “Every last one of them.”

“Don’t stereotype. Besides, how do you know I’m not a Gemini?”

“You said you were a water sign.” Grantaire accepts his tea mug. “Thank you.”

“Of course. The honey is over there.”

For a moment they’re quiet, doctoring up their tea and taking the first cautious sips. Then Enjolras says, “I don’t actually know what it means. To be a water sign.”

Grantaire puts the honey spoon in the sink. “I mean, I can’t tell you a ton about what it _means,_ but I just know that like. There are four elements and twelve signs, so if you’re a water sign you could only be one of three signs. That’s about all the math I can do, so don’t get too impressed.”

“Don’t worry,” Enjolras assures him dryly.

“And I know certain elements get along better with others, and, um, specifically that people are supposed to get along with anyone with their same element, so. Yeah.”

Enjolras nods. “Cool.”

They drink their tea in silence for a moment. Grantaire wonders if he should be trying to extract himself from this situation. He can’t leave with a full mug of tea—it’s like an anchor in his hand—but he still doesn’t really know why Enjolras wants him here, and not knowing is making him jittery.

Enjolras isn’t done with him, though. “I like the way Prouvaire talks about astrology. Like a suggestion, as opposed to something set in stone.”

Of course. Enjolras sees a stone, he tries to break it down. “He’s not one for telling people how to live their lives.”

“It’s nice.” Enjolras looks thoughtfully into his mug. “An opportunity to look at something a different way.”

“It is,” Grantaire agrees.

“Something you may have never considered before.”

“Yeah.” This seems really specific. Grantaire swallows and glances at Enjolras.

Enjolras is watching him back.

Some foolhardy internal voice urges Grantaire to do the brave thing. He takes a breath and says, “So, um, is there anything specific you wanted to talk about?”

Enjolras kisses him.

It’s a hard kiss. Forceful, even though it only lasts an instant. Grantaire could almost believe it hadn’t happened, except that his mouth is shocked and open with the recent sensation of being touched.

Enjolras moves back, only the space of a single breath. “Okay?” he asks. His eyes are very careful on Grantaire’s face.

Grantaire has no idea what sort of expression he’s making. “I just…need a second.” For reorientation. Reworking. Reconfiguring. Enjolras kissed Grantaire, therefore the world has started spinning in the other direction.

Even as vague as stars can be, he wishes they could have told him about _this._

“Your mug is tipping,” Enjolras says.

“What?” Grantaire asks, maybe a little out of breath, but he’ll never admit it. Enjolras reaches out to steady the mug in his hand which—oh, he’s about to dump his tea onto the floor. Grantaire hastily sets it on the counter. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Enjolras sets his mug down as well, and then they’re kissing again, Grantaire can’t be sure who reached for whom but he doesn’t think he cares. The tip of Enjolras’s nose is so cold but his mouth is so soft, now that he’s not throwing all of his energy into a single moment, now that he’s lingering. Both of his hands have come up to frame the sides of Grantaire’s face. He couldn’t move away even if he wanted to. He doesn’t want to. 

They fit together so well. Enjolras is a single fucking inch taller—a point of great annoyance to Grantaire, ever since he found that out—but it means that neither one has to strain to reach the other, it means that the respective heights of their mouths are very convenient, it means that when Grantaire leans back against the counter and pulls Enjolras into him, their bodies line up perfectly.

This is going to be a bad idea in about three seconds. Grantaire moves back and tries not to melt at the way Enjolras chases him for a moment. “Wait,” he says, definitely out of breath now. “Wait, wait, I’m…listen, I’m _so_ invested in what’s going on here, just, also, like confused?” Enjolras takes a step back and Grantaire tries not to whine from the lack of contact. He’s babbling. “Like, truly, mark me down as scared and horny, as the prophets say, but also, can we like, talk? About this?”

“We can talk about this,” Enjolras says. Two bright roses have appeared in his cheeks and it’s horribly, impossibly charming. “Please don’t be scared.”

“It’s a saying. A meme.” Grantaire wishes he could die. Except not really, because. Because this. “I’m not scared of you.”

That makes Enjolras smile, fully and truly. “Good.”

Grantaire picks up his tea again, assuming that it’s out of danger for the time being, even though he has no idea what to expect from the rest of the evening. “I didn’t know you were bringing me back here for…this,” he says, carefully.

Enjolras also takes up his tea. “I didn’t have an agenda,” he says, more self-composed than he has any right to be.

“When did you…when did this start? Because I feel like I should have noticed. At some point. That you were attracted to me. At all.”

Enjolras looks thoughtful. “I don’t really know how to answer that. I definitely know that by the time I could put a name to it, I had been feeling it for a while.” He shuffles his feet a little. “I wasn’t sure if it would be…prudent to tell you.”

This is so many miles away from Grantaire’s usual dates and hookups. He didn’t expect his courtship to contain so many fucking SAT words. “Why not?”

Another sip of tea. “At first I was worried that it would have a negative impact on the group.” Fucking student government. “But you’re not officially on the board…” Grantaire toasts his mascot status. “And even if you were, it hasn’t stopped anyone else. I was being a coward.”

“Looking for reasons not to tell me.”

“Yes.” Enjolras looks unhappy. “And then once I had gotten over that, I didn’t, because.” Grantaire waits. Enjolras squares his shoulders. “Because I wasn’t sure you would want to hear it.”

“I hope I’ve sufficiently demonstrated that I definitely wanted to hear it,” Grantaire says dryly. “Do you want me to demonstrate some more?”

That makes Enjolras laugh. Grantaire laughs too, drawing closer.

The mugs are returned to the counter for a few more minutes.

“When did you realize?” Grantaire asks, once they’ve gotten their breath back. Enjolras’s golden hair is all in disarray, which is maybe the best thing Grantaire has seen all week. “What tipped you off?”

Enjolras ducks his head. “You’ll think it’s foolish.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“You will,” Enjolras says, and sighs. “Do you remember the party at Courfeyrac’s? Start of the semester?”

A true back-to-school rager. Grantaire gained a beer pong championship title and a raging hangover from that night. “Yes?”

Enjolras fidgets. “It was the smallest thing,” he says quietly. “You brought me a cup of water, just to make sure I wasn’t drinking too much. I wasn’t drinking at all that night, actually. I rarely do. But you were just…making sure.” He clears his throat. “It’s stupid, to have found something so tender in the middle of a party like that.”

“It’s not stupid,” Grantaire says. He remembers taking the red solo cup to Enjolras, lingering there to make sure he drank it. At the time, he had no idea what he’d done. “I brought you water. You made me tea. There’s some sort of symmetry in that.”

“Astrological compatibility.”

Grantaire laughs. “We can say that, too.”

Enjolras kisses him on the temple. “Will you stay?” he asks. “It’s late, but I want to kiss you more.”

The dregs of tea are abandoned. “I’ll stay,” Grantaire promises. 

Later, they curl up under Enjolras’s absurdly nice sheets, drowsy and warm. Grantaire is in a borrowed shirt and his boxers; Enjolras sleeps with most of his skin bared to the night, impossibly lovely in the dim light of his room. It’s well past a respectable hour. Grantaire is devoutly thankful that his morning class doesn’t take attendance. 

One last thought floats through his exhausted brain before he passes out. “Won’t Combeferre be home?” he asks sleepily.

“I don’t think so,” Enjolras murmurs back. “He was planning on making a move on Courfeyrac tonight, since it’s his birthday and all. I’m assuming no news is good news.”

Grantaire starts to laugh. Prouvaire was right, the little bastard.

He drifts off to sleep with a smile on his face and his feet tangled with Enjolras’s.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr i am [kvothes](https://kvothes.tumblr.com/tagged/x)!
> 
> just a short sweet thing for the end of the year. i’m just trying to get back into the swing of writing fiction. i do actually care a lot about astrology, but here’s a disclaimer that not everything in this fic is something i agree with, etc. etc. this is also blatantly based on my college town and i’m not sorry.
> 
> yes i have Opinions on who is what sign. no you will not change my mind.
> 
> happy holidays!


End file.
